After dying twice, I figured out that a different approach must be taken. I noticed that durability does not go down much (I did this quest with an 85 sage), so rather than "button mashing" like I normally do when tradeskilling, I waited for the events to come up so I could counter them. The combine took longer, but I finished it alive.
By the way, I never realized that it is possible to incur tradeskill experience debt.
Edited, Mar 7th 2010 9:54pm by joshlyman